Dieter's ideas on improvement

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Table of contents

Introduction

When it comes to improvement, there are four categories of players:[1]

  1. Those who are satisfied with their level [2], are not prepared to do what's necessary to improve and play for fun.
  2. Those who are not satisfied with their level, but are not prepared either to do what's necessary to improve.
  3. Those who are not satisfied with their level, who ARE prepared to do what's necessary to improve but do not know what that is.
  4. Those who improve because they both know what should be done and do it.

Most players are in the second category, whether they know what it takes to improve or not. They just don't want to do that and by that very token should be satisfied with their current level.

The second largest category is number three. I am writing this article so that people of category 2 and 3 should know what it takes to improve and then can decide whether they want to become happy players of their current level (cat 1), or people who improve (cat 4).

I am not a great Go player so what I write is aimed at lower kyu players. It is quite probable that to become a higher dan, something else is needed than what's below. What I do know, is that I would have become 2d much faster if I had applied it.

The keys to improvement

If you want to improve in the game of Go, and this I have distilled out of many other teachers' pages, there are five major things you have to do. I'll list them, then elaborate more on them, because I feel there are quite a few misconceptions about those items.

  1. Do tsumego.
  2. Replay professional games?.
  3. Get a source of new ideas (books, Sensei's Library, a teacher)
  4. Play games, fast and slow.
  5. Review your games.

Now there are many people who do at least part of this list and still not improve. That is, because they do it the wrong way. Here's more on each item.

1. Tsumego

There are two reasons to exercise tsumego. Firstly, they will enhance your intuition for vital points of groups, for possible actions against groups, for status of groups. This kind of intuition is developed by doing many easy tsumego.

Secondly and equally (or even more) important, they will develop reading skills. Tsumego go one step further than ladders. In ladders, you read very deeply (say 30 moves) but do not branch at all. In tsumego, depending on the level, you read 3/5/10/20 moves deep and you branch into a few variations at each move. In whole board fighting, the branching is much broader and there is usually not one single solution. So, when tsumego exercises are done, one has to apply the acquired skill to the game. This is where many people Go wrong: they become excellent problem solvers, but fail to extend their ability to the game.

It is a matter of discipline. "I'm going to read this like I would read a tsumego". It is arguable whether every single move is a problem setting. As a first approach, apply your "problem solving mode" to fighting where the life of groups is at stake.

2. Replaying pro games

Replaying professional games enhances your intuition. Locally good shape, the strength of groups, the direction of play. So one should replay the pro game at a relatively fast pace, not trying to understand too much what is going on.

The mistake: spend hours trying to understand the pro game, which is well beyond reach for players below 5d. It doesn't harm your game, but it is time consuming and little efficient.

3. New ideas and knowledge

Of course, if you want to improve, you need to acquire knowledge. The best thing I think is a teacher?, because he or she will know best what your game is lacking and how much new stuff you can handle. The teacher should give you a few new ideas and insist that you exercise them in your game;

Two mistakes here: people without a teacher usually read too many books. Secondly, and consequently, they fail to consciously aplly the new ideas in their games.

4. Play fast and slow

Even more obvious is the fact that you should play to improve. I know many players who just played an enormous amount of games and improved very fast. But this is also time consuming and out of reach for many people, particularly those with a working schedule.

In order to make effective use of the time invested in playing, one should do two things:

The mistake: many people play games, applying the same attitude?, the same old ideas, without any intention to correct their mistakes. Which takes me to:

5. Reviews

In my opinion, this is the activity with the heaviest impact on one's improvement. With your teacher or someone else or alone, review the fast games and try to find which of your intuitively played moves gave a disadvantage. You can do some tactical analysis, even if you didn't in the game, but not too much: the purpose is to find flaws in the intuition.

At the same rate, review your slow games and dive into tactics. Where did you read badly ? Where did you NOT read !? Which principles, ideas or concepts did you apply ? Where did you forget to apply which principle ? Where did you misjudge a position you anticipated in the game ? Identify your mistakes and try to consciously avoid them in your next (slow) game.

Here too one can go wrong Unfortunately there are many teachers who point out mistakes but forget to urge their pupil not making the same mistakes again and do not verify the next time if the error is still around.

The allocated time

Here's a schedule I propose for an ideal student. The only thing you have to do when you have not the necessary amount of time, is take ratios.

This gives a total amount of 10 hours. If you have 20 hours to spend, make it double. If you have 5 hours to spend, cut every aspect in half.

To make a comparison, imagine you spend 10 hours the following way:

You may even try to maximize the effort and apply the ideas in the book to your two games, but:


[2]

An important note about level

When speaking of level, I deliberately do not speak of rank. While rank is an indicator of level, preoccupation with rank too often distracts of the proper goal: improve. People who care about their rank will try everything to win or not to lose (which is the same thing but quite another approach) and tend to ignore the value of lost games, namely the analysis.

I will review this page later. Please comment on the ideas.

Dieter

See also dnerra's ideas on improvement.


Reader's comments

yoyoma: Dieter which of the 4 categories do you place yourself in? Since I'm asking I'll mention I put myself in #4.

Dieter: Yoyoma, I have been in all. I have been in n° 3 for most of my career - although I gradually improved - until I started reviewing my own games, at which point I experienced a spectacuar breakthrough (I was already doing all the other things, but rather purposeless). Since I have started practicing the guitar and devote the rest of my spare time to my band, and occasionally an article on SL #:-7, I try to be in category 1.

Adam Marquis: Would you say (Dieter or anyone) that it is better to review right away, or play and review in separate sessions? I feel that if I review right away, I notice only the big mistakes I noticed during the game, but remember them. If I review later, I think I forget some of my ideas during the game, but come up with some different ones (just because I'm in a different mindset).

Dieter: I think that it is best to review in a separate session. Let me speak for myself though: I have seldom enjoyed reviews with my opponent right after the game, because it is only too human to try and win the post mortem. It is tempting to convince your opponent, whereas you should be convinced yourself. I have much more enjoyed the analysis in isolation, a few hours after the game. I remembered my ideas but I was in a state of fairness towards myself.

With your teacher or another player, it is better to take distance from your ideas and open yourself to his or her remarks. The "Yes, but I ..." is defensive and counterproductive.

dnerra: I am surprised about this statement. After playing a serious tournament game against an opponent of similar strength, we almost always find points where my opponent can point out some move of mine he found odd, and rightly so, and vice-versa.

Dieter: Indeed Dave. I think that's more of a confirmation than a disagreement. I just want to say that you better take a good thought before answering your opponent's/teacher's remark, allowing yourself to leave the mindset with which the move was played. I encourage discussion.


[1]

Bill: And then there are players who just hope and pray not to go downhill. <grin, I think>


Adam Marquis: I think I'll try this out. I'm around 5k right now, I'll let you know in a month or so how it is going for me. Thanks for the advice!

Malweth: Add me to the "Trying it out" phase... I have been noticing that I play less thoughtful games lately - I think this is because of the lack of new ideas and failure to apply reading ability beyond what comes naturally (Tesuji, normal moves, and pattern recognition).

Malweth: Although I think "Allocating the time" can be varied somewhat (depending on the person - as long as the important elements are there), this style of learning is effective. I can't give any accurate personal stats (that would require knowing my rank). I have definitely been getting stronger, though! One comment is that, IMO most people have trouble keeping to a set schedule. Personally I have a hard time playing games because of time reasons... however... completing a good review of your games is very important as is expanding your reading ability in whatever way you can. I'm not convinced that playing fast games versus slow games is that useful, though... and (also IMHO) tsumego that take 10-15 minutes may be a bit too hard (easy tsumego for me are under 10 sec each, hard ones take less than a minute or two). But what do I know :D... I'm just somewhere around 5k (I think ;)


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This is a copy of the living page "Dieter's ideas on improvement" at Sensei's Library.
(OC) 2004 the Authors, published under the OpenContent License V1.0.
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